Alhalam is a planet whose inhabitants died tens of thousands of years ago. Their species went extinct, exterminated by a devastating disease. Their functional (but now pointless) robots continue to work and keep the cities tidy and full of resources. These ghost cities maintain their robots through their Self Conservation Robotic System, that fixes any robots that might be broken, corrupted, or that would otherwise act outside of normal duties. Sometimes, a robot might have a problem that was not programmed to be fixed by the system, leaving it to roam on its own with its unusual new behaviours.
Alhalam is under the control of the Iz’kal, and they have chosen to not interfere or establish any colonies on it to honour the memory of the old species that once lived there (and the strange microcosms that its peaceful robot inhabitants have achieved).
A team of iz’kal researchers have established themselves on the planet and continue to observe and learn from what is left by the extinct race and from the inorganic tecnosystem left by them.
Story[]
“Sir, we have found the cure.”
“And it’s a hundred years too late.”
“I know.”
If AT-01 were human, it might have asked why MK-41 continued its search, nearly a century later. But AT-01 understood the compulsion of another robot to finalise its work.
“What is left for you to do?”
“Nothing, my code is empty.”
If MK-41 were human, it would have been happy to achieve its life goal. But MK-41 had no feelings. It just stood there.
AT-01 moved on, its code always had something for it to do. And that made it neither happy or unhappy.
Source Material[]
This short story originally appeared in Rulebook v1.0.